A few variables here. The device needs to be selected in order for most keystrokes to work. Just like how focus works in Max or even other plugins in Live.
Another problem may be that you have the keyboard MIDI enabled.

The safest bet is to use something that takes keys directly from keyboard, regardless of which app is in focus. The [hi] object may work for that, though it doesn’t seem to work with ASCII codes.

First off, autobot is not standard. Secondly, if it generates keystrokes, one can expect that the result of the keystrokes would be dependent of the frontmost application. So you might want to check that Live doesn’t intercept the keystroke first.

a chain I would have wished to minimize to only
BCR->Live
and that ‘theoretically’ should be possible with the power of Max within Live..

on another old workaround topic :
my desktop evolver is routed the same way using the ‘soundtower’ app in order to use it’s sysex..
but no automating in live except notes and ccs..
the m4l "solution" is to route sysex out of live using osc..
which I do in my patch..
but these approaches are clumsy and have their toll on the cpu /stability..
(routing all that midi around)

Why aren’t you using Mackie emulation? A lot of the menu functions are Mackie commands. You can navigate and there are a few more global controls.
Sounds a hell of a lot easier than doing all this keystroke stuff.

is working for me on Windows XP. Keystrokes are send to the selected window. Is it possible to always send them to the Live window? I want to automate some functions of Live that are not in MFL. I don’t know Java well enough to program this myself.